The Most Important Thing You Can Teach Your Toddler

Five research-based hacks for teaching big social-emotional concepts to tiny humans

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

Every parent of a toddler wants to know how to stop tantrums, hitting, biting, and other challenging behaviors. Research finds that one of the most effective ways to reduce these behaviors is by teaching social-emotional skills. But how exactly do you teach something so complex to a toddler? Here are five research-backed hacks for encouraging the development of these skills without making it feel like a lesson:

1. Try emotional bridging: Emotional bridging is the practice of pointing out emotions to children and then explaining the cause of the emotion and linking the emotion to the child’s own experiences. These explanations help to “bridge” the gap between the emotion and its cause and “bridge” the gap between the emotions of others and the child’s own emotions which helps to build empathy. For example, you could say something like: “The girl in this book is angry because her fun plans were cancelled. Do you remember when we had to cancel that play date and you felt angry?” Research finds that teaching parents to use this strategy results in fewer behavioral problems in children.

2. Use structuring instead than directing: Research has found that parents who respond to their child’s negative emotions with structuring (helping the child to use a coping strategy on their own) instead of directing (telling the child what to do) show improved self-regulation abilities. For example, if your child is upset because they can’t figure out how to operate a toy, directing would mean saying something like “Stop crying. Here, I’ll do it for you,” while structuring would mean saying something like “I see you’re frustrated. Maybe you could try pushing this button and see if it turns the toy on?” Here’s another example— your child is sick of waiting for their turn with a toy and starts whining, directing would be saying something like “No whining! You just have to wait!” while structuring would mean saying something like “I know waiting can be hard. What can you do while you wait? Do you want to sing a song or play a game with me?”.

3. Read children books with social-emotional themes: Research finds that reading children books with social and emotional themes increases their empathy and kind behavior. In particular, you may want to read books that model healthy coping strategies since research shows that children can learn emotional regulation strategies from picture books. I recently wrote two books aimed at teaching children emotion regulation skills, including What To Do When You Feel Like Biting and What To Do When It’s Time to Calm Down. Other books I would recommend include: The Boy With Big, Big Feelings, In My Heart, The Way I Feel, How Is Daniel Feeling, and Grumpy Monkey.

4. Use play to teach about emotions: Research finds that using play to teach children about emotions can be a very effective strategy. You can try Emotion Charades (where you each act different emotions and see if the other person can guess) or you can use stuffed animals, dolls or puppets to act out different emotions in pretend play. It can also be very fun to act out scenes together in which children to pretend to the parents and parents pretend to be the children. You can use this role playing to show them what different emotions might look like and how to cope with those emotions. For example, you could suggest that your child pretend to be a parent telling a child that that they aren’t allowed to have candy and you could pretend to the child. They will think it is hilarious if you throw an epic toddler tantrum— just make sure that you model healthy coping skills to calm down after the tantrum.

5. Teach precursors to perspective-taking: Toddlers don’t yet know how to take the perspective of another person (an important fact to remember when you are wondering why toddlers act the way that they do). The ability to take the perspective of another person will ultimately improve a child’s behavior since perspective-taking helps children to understand the impact of these behaviors. So how do you encourage children to develop perspective-taking as soon as possible? Research finds that improving children’s imitation skills may help to improve social skills like perspective-taking. You can encourage your child’s imitation skills by making funny faces and sounds to see if they imitate you (prompting them by saying “you do it”), singing songs that encourage imitation such as Wheels on the Bus and If You’re Happy and You Know It, playing imitation games like Simon Says, and paying attention to and praising any attempts they make at imitation. You can also talk a lot about perspective-taking by regularly explaining the thoughts and feelings of others. For example, you could say: “I think your sister was thinking it was her turn with the toy next and she felt sad when you grabbed it out of her hand.”

Expert Review

This post was reviewed by Devon Kuntzman, a wife, mama, and the original toddler parenting expert on Instagram. She created Transforming Toddlerhood with the mission to transform the myth that toddlerhood is terrible. She is an ICF-certified coach with a degree in psychology. She also has a community of 1 million parents and caregivers committed to transforming their parenting, their toddler’s behavior, and overall experience of toddlerhood while creating a relationship with their child that lasts a lifetime. Her new book, Transforming Toddlerhood: How to Handle Tantrums, End Power Struggles, and Raise Resilient Kids---Without Losing Your Mind, is the ultimate guide to handling all of the difficult situations that come up with a toddler. It’s the first comprehensive, science-based, easy-to-implement guide for parenting kids ages 1-5. Broken down into 45 mini chapters, inside you’ll find tips, behavior red flags, and frameworks to overcome the most common parenting challenges. Think of it as the “what to expect” for toddlerhood.

Please don’t forget to check out my new books, What To Do When You Feel Like Biting and What To Do When It’s Time To Calm Down and please leave an Amazon Review! Thank you so much for your support!!

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Welcome to the Parenting Translator newsletter! I am Dr. Cara Goodwin, a licensed psychologist with a PhD in child psychology and mother to four children (currently a 2-year-old, 5-year-old, 7-year-old, and 10-year-old). I specialize in taking all of the research that is out there related to parenting and child development and turning it into information that is accurate, relevant, and useful for parents! I recently turned these efforts into a non-profit organization since I believe that all parents deserve access to unbiased and free information. This means that I am only here to help YOU as a parent so please send along any feedback, topic suggestions, or questions that you have! You can also find me on Instagram @parentingtranslator, on TikTok @parentingtranslator, and my website (www.parentingtranslator.com).

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